Eric is founder of NeXTpectations / Business Influencer of the Year / Speaker / USA Today Best-selling Author – Follow Eric on LinkedIn.
Half The Equation, All The Accolades
Leadership gets so much of societal accolades, but by itself, leadership is like one hand clapping. What if the skill a leader needs to become extraordinary isn’t leadership? I have found there is another equally valuable skill.
The word “leader” refers to an individual, yet the act of leadership itself is exceedingly social. How could we ever completely define a social act by the actions of one individual alone? We can’t. In fact, doing so may have people think there’s some immutable capability or quality. This can lead people to believe leadership is the only role that matters, and then ego creeps in, creating conflict and challenges between people to “be the leader.”
There is one thing leaders needs to be successful: followers. And while it garners comparatively little attention, it turns out the skill of followership may be every bit as important in creating, shaping and amplifying great leaders.
What Physics Can Teach Us About Leadership
In physics, Einstein proved more than a century ago that time and space are connected. For example, the faster one moves through space, the slower they experience time. No longer, at least in physics, did it make sense to express space or time as distinct, and thus a new term was born—spacetime. Spacetime expressed how space and time are inextricably woven together, and mentioning one without the other was an incomplete representation of what was really happening.
I propose the same is true between leadership and followership. As sure as there is one, there must be the other. All the accolades heralded upon leaders and the skills or attributes of leadership are incomplete without also recognizing, admiring and mastering the skill of great followers and followership.
Enter Leadership-Followership. Far less catchy a phrase than spacetime, but befitting nonetheless. Until we link these together in our thinking, any expression of leadership will be incomplete. Yet, it’s not about the leader, and it’s not about the follower. Leadership is part of a social necessity, not some magical individual endowment. Every person needs help to turn out a decent life. The truth is, none of us can survive without help. And most all of us spend our time working with others in family, career and friendship to produce a better future together than we could separately.
Leadership and followership are the two most fundamental roles any of us can hold in working together to produce a better future situation than the current one we are in. But make no mistake about it—it’s about the better future we can produce together, not about the role we hold in its production. If we strip away the ego, does it really matter if we lead or follow? Our cultural fascination with the role of leadership may in fact blind us to the more meaningful future outcomes we can produce together, regardless of which role we hold.
Anyone Can Lead And Even Leaders Must Follow
With this perspective, it becomes less a concern of whether you are the leader or follower. Instead, we can see more clearly that it’s about the future outcome we want to produce together. This allows us to begin to figure out what really matters in a given situation, which I have found can be addressed by beginning with two simple questions:
1. “Who amongst us has the better interpretation about how to produce the desired future outcome?”
Enter the leader.
2. “Are the others of us willing to contribute to produce this outcome together?”
Enter the followers.
This allows us the ability to see leadership-followership as dynamic, not static.
Picture a tall skyscraper in Manhattan, the home office of a multi-national company we might read about in the news. The window washer bursts into the office of the CEO and starts telling her how to do her job. Would the CEO listen? Most likely not. However, let’s change the context. Imagine there is a fire in the building, and alarms are blaring. The window washer bursts into the CEO’s office and says, “There’s a fire. I know the way to the only emergency exit still clear, but we need to leave now. Follow me!” Would she listen? You bet. No one would care about titles or roles. In that moment, the window washer has the better thinking on how to produce the desired future outcome, and the multi-national CEO will follow. And if she’s a truly skilled leader, she will probably know how to follow very well—listening, taking direction, supporting the window washer to clear the path as he leads.
The inverse is true as well. No matter how charismatic or convincing, a typical person wouldn’t likely follow that CEO if she proposed something harmful to their future. Thus, she would never actually become the leader because no one would willingly follow her into an outcome that was undesirable.
The better future, and the person who knows best how to produce it, drives who leads, no matter title or role. Which means we can all potentially lead, and as leaders, we must also learn how to yield and follow as a skill to help produce the better future together.
Stewards Of The Future
Let’s break past all the platitudes of leadership and recognize that real leadership is defined more by the excellence of the followership one attracts to work with them. Consider working to master the skills of leadership-followership, or followership-leadership. Let’s break societal impulse to imbue supposed leadership characteristics. Instead, let’s focus on producing a better future together than we ever could have apart—and let the roles land where they create the best likelihood for success towards that future. Leadership is social, not solo.
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